A Caleb Carol
by The Wallflower
Summary: Caleb finds himself to be going through the motions of Mr. Scrooge. Only this time, the spirits won't be as forgiving.
1. Stave 1: Marley's Ghost

Copyright 2001 by Eric J. Juneau. All rights reserved.

This story is in no way intended to infringe on the established copyrights and trademarks of Monolith Productions, Inc. It is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended for sale. It may be freely distributed providing that no alterations to the story are made. The characters and incidents portrayed and the names in this story used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person, living, dead, or otherwise, is purely coincidental and unintentional.

**A Caleb Carol**

**By Eric J. Juneau**

**_Stave 1: Marley's Ghost_**

Marley was dead, to begin with.

The cultists had made absolutely sure of that before they signaled the Chosen. With a task as minor as the killing of some mortal citizens who posed a threat to the Cult of Tchernobog in some way or another, only the low-ranked and expendable needed to see to it. Tchernobog cared so deeply for His four esteemed generals He made sure the lower rungs of the Cabal performed any minor or uncomplicated responsibilities. Even though, by the definition of being a general in Tchernobog's army, the four had received such dark powers that cannot be mentioned, the One that Binds would take no unnecessary chances. The four could not disagree.

It didn't matter what this fellow did, whether he owned a steel mill the Cabal could annex, or he led some sort of anti-cult movement or organization of the old religion that hindered their ways and means. It didn't matter. If there was something they had that could serve the Cabal, like a lumber mill or a railroad, of course the Cabal would not have killed him outright. The intentions of the Cult had to be kept secret, away from public's eyes. They wouldn't understand. No, first the Cabal would try to coerce him to join their cause, being sure to highlight the advantages of servitude to the Dark God, the riches, the immortality, the power. Failing that, which most often happened, coercion would change to threat. Failing that, which didn't often happen, there was no longer any other alternative. Not with the knowledge of the Cult and its purposes at the hands of some puny civilian. The Cult of Tchernobog did not care to mince words or waste time.

Caleb liked this philosophy of the Cult best. No one tried to bullshit him with sugary words or false promises. Direct and prompt was the only way to do things and it was the only way the Cult operated. The hand signal the gray-dressed cultist was displaying right now only further proved that point. Why complicate matters with elaborate words or a report when a simple hand signal was all that was needed.

Upon this signal, the four Chosen ones, Caleb, Gabriel, Ishmael, and Ophelia, who were standing a fair distance away from the manor for protection and watching the underlings, began walking towards the homestead and into its doors.

Caleb was the last to make it through the house's archway, getting his leather trench coat caught on a doornail jutting out of the frame. If Caleb were a smarter man, he would have thought it unusual that such a refined home would have a mistake in construction obvious as this. But the fact was Caleb was not a man of great intelligence and he only ripped himself out and cursed the nail in his mind.

Ophelia, Gabriel, and Ishmael had fanned out and were searching through desk drawers and cabinets, under sofas and tables for the object that had been stolen from them. The floor was far from a tidy state, as if the house had been picked up by a child's hand and shaken to hear what was inside, like a Christmas present. The Cabal was looking for an object of great value and power. It had been given to Marley as a demonstration of their power, though he kept it when he denied the Cabal's request. Probably for evidence to show authorities. And there would be no having that.

Caleb stood just inside the door, holding his weapon at present like a walking stick. It was called a life leech and certainly it was as grotesque a weapon as the name would imply. A yellowing bone skull pushed onto a staff of equal hue and securely fastened with rope and two small crossbones made a deceitful and bizarre shaft, the skull being the worst of it. Various teeth in the mandible and upper jaw were left empty and one wide hazel eye left in its socket gazed at nothing, well preserved from the Eldritch Fire magic the weapon possessed. Only those given power in the dark arts, like the Chosen and few higher-ranked cultists, could wield it to its fullest potential. Caleb, for the most part, did not take much from the power of the life leech. For although he had the power of black magic, he did not use it skillfully, and preferred the more tangible bullets and cartridges. But as a walking staff, it filled its role nicely.

"All dead," Caleb said to the fanatic, partially a question, partially a declaration.

"Aye."

"And you still haven't found the object?"

"No, sir."

"Where are the bodies?"

"In this room here, sir, the bedroom." The cultist led Caleb down a hallway at the left to a room at the end of the hall. He opened the already partially gapped door a little wider for him.

"Find somewhere to search. I'll look here," Caleb commanded.

"Very well, sir." The cultist left.

Three bodies were lying on the floor at the foot of the double bed. Everything was arranged as a homicide/suicide should law enforcement be able to read through what would soon be the ashes of the house. Marley's wife wore a necklace of blood from her slit throat, no doubt done as the first victim. Their fair-haired son of what could be four years, give or take, held onto a bullet in his forehead that had killed him instantly. It looked like a morose West Indian gem decoration, Caleb thought. Last was Marley, who was slumped on his side. Caleb pulled him over on his back to take a look at him. He kept three bullet wounds in his bosom - two in the abdomen, one just above and right of the left breast. His eyes were still open though. In the Cult, this meant his soul was so reluctant to leave this world the body kept the eyes open to the last. Caleb put up a hand to shut those gazing eyes.

Marley shot out his hand suddenly and clutched onto Caleb's trench coat. "Why?" he whispered hoarsely. "Why?"

Though Caleb was reflexively startled, he held no fear. With a quick twist he freed himself of Marley's weak grip, took up his life leech, and plunged the blunt end into the body's chest. Marley grunted once as he curled up from the blow, then rested limp, never moving again. Caleb yanked the stick out of the fresh corpse's stomach, which now glistened dull red at the end.

"That'll teach ya."

Ophelia poked her bright red head through the door. "Is there a problem?"

"Not anymore," Caleb replied and rested the life leech on his shoulder.

"Good. We're leaving."

"You found it?"

"Gabriel found it!" Gabriel shouted from the house's foyer. "You owe me twenty bucks, Ish."

"Yes, yes."

"I found it first, I found it first," he danced around in a sing-song voice.

"Yes, yes, very amusing," Ishmael said seriously.

"Enough!" Caleb shouted. "Stop acting like children. I just had to finish off that guy in there. He was still alive."

"Well, that's not our f-"

"I don't care. If you weren't acting like such dimwits these sorts of things wouldn't happen. Now get your act together," he shouted angrily.

"Jeez, sorry."

"Now where is this thing that was so damn precious?"

"Here, sir."

A nearby cultist held out a neatly folded black sheet. Caleb picked it up and let it drop unfolded. It resembled a cloak, made of a shimmering material.

"What is this?"

"It's a Shadow Cloak, sir."

"We already have that - the Cloak of Invisibility."

"No sir, it's not like a Cloak of Invisibility."

"Then what does it do?"

"Ummm..."

"Well?" Caleb said, growing impatient.

"Well, we don't really know. We have people looking into it though. It's an experimental object."

"So we came to all this trouble just for a freakin' bed sheet?" Caleb threw the cloak back on the cultist. "Did you think Marley would be impressed by something that wouldn't even work? I can't take this incompetence anymore. How are we supposed to spread our influence with you bumbling idiots."

Gabriel started laughing in the background.

"And you can shut the hell up, Gabe. I am especially close to pounding you."

Gabriel shut up, with a serious and mournful puppy dog face on.

"What's your problem?" Ophelia asked.

"Nothing. Let's go," he put his arm around Ophelia's waist and the two went to the door. The four exited the house, with Caleb giving the standing guard zealot one final order.

"Burn this place to the ground."

"Aye, sir," he said and immediately went to retrieve the others to assist with this order.

Caleb took the life leech off his shoulder and turned it so it would serve as a walking stick once again. As he shifted its position, he thought he caught a glimpse of the staff's one eye flick towards him, taking a quick glance at his vicious countenance.

Startled, he turned the skull to face him and scrutinized it carefully. It stayed as dead as it always was, eye forever set in a lifeless gaze. Caleb dismissed the apparition and kept walking.

* * *

The tavern was busy this evening, and Caleb didn't much like that. He consumed his usual midnight snack of peanuts the bar provided. And with peanuts there was always plenty of liquor to wash them down, tonight's drink being a bottle of cheap scotch whiskey. It was a good place for Caleb to sneak out to whenever the pressures of the demands of the Cult bore down on him too hard. More and more he was coming here, though he didn't notice it, nor would admit it if he did. The Cult forbade its members to leave the earthly premises of the Cult's sanctum. But he was a general. And he was the damned best general that anybody'd ever seen. No one was gonna kick him out. No one would dare try.

If he had bothered to look behind him when the door to the pub suddenly burst open wide, slamming against the wall it was fastened to, he would have seen one of the most delighted individuals the bar had seen for a long time.

"Mack, drinks for everybody," he said with his arms raised.

The bartender looked up from his conversation with another patron. "What's the occasion?"

"I'm getting married!"

The bar quietly erupted with congratulations and mazel tovs. Familiar folks and friends of the bar patted him on the back and shook his hand. Caleb did his best to ignore them.

"Who is it?"

"Sylvia Kettle, Dr. Kettle's daughter."

"Oh, that's fantastic."

"Thank you."

"I didn't even know you two were courting."

"I never thought you'd settle down, you old rascal you."

"When's the wedding?"

"Two months from now, on the fifteenth."

"I hope we're invited."

"Of course you are. Everyone here is. Hey Mack, where are those drinks?"

"Coming right up," Mack replied, busily fixing up pitchers of beer. Caleb couldn't help overhearing them, try as he might. The noise was clamorous enough to wake the dead. He just filled up another shot's worth and downed it in a gulp.

"Oh, it's going to be wonderful. It'll be so elegant. Ah, I tell you boys, I ain't never felt this way. Every day the birds are singing, the sun is out, the food I eat never tasted so good."

Fellows at the table laughed with him.

"Laugh if you want, it's true, I tell you. It's true as God as my witness."

"Hey, Ben, drinks are ready." The bartender put two pitchers of golden ale in the space next to Caleb. Ben stood from the table to grab the pitchers and looked at Caleb.

"Come stranger. You look lonely. Join us at our table. Take part in our merriment."

"Get outta here," was Caleb's quiet reply.

"Oh, come now. Don't be so glum. This is a happy occasion. Lighten up. Every once in a while, even when we trudge through our darkest times we must stop and remind ourselves how lucky we are to be alive."

"I'm not paid enough to be nice to you."

"Join us please. Here, I'll even buy you a drink. Mack," he said to the bartender. "Get this man a glass of wine. A white zinfandel. You're a zinfandel man, I'll wager."

"If I throw a stick, will you leave?" Caleb muttered, not even looking at the guy.

"Here you go," Mack set a glass of white wine before Caleb.

He ignored it.

Ignorant of the comment, "Come on, everyone else is having fun. Why not join us in it?"

Caleb picked up the glass of wine and dumped it on Ben's head. Others in the bar were flabbergasted. "You're right. Now I'm having fun."

"Now there's no need for that, friend," Ben said, a little stunned but otherwise undaunted. He grasped Caleb about the shoulder, which was the final straw. Caleb threw back his arm and punched him square in the face. Stunned eyes looked up from tables. Joyous faces turned to surprise. Ben touched his lip to confirm the blood beginning to dribble down his chin.

"I don't drink wine. I don't 'take part in merriment'. And I sure as hell ain't your friend." Caleb stood menacingly over Ben's body. "How did you ever get married."

Ben looked back with a quizzical expression. "Because I fell in love," he said partially garbled from his half-filled and half-open mouth.

Caleb gave a small groan of disgust as he looked away. "You give a nice contrast to the real world."

"You get outta here," Mack said. "You don't come in here no more, you hear?"

He left Ben on the floor and exited the tavern, not wanting to spend any more time in the company of such ridiculous individuals. Every pair of eyes followed him as he walked through the exit without another word.

* * *

Sleep was a beauteous, dreamless void for Caleb. He always fell asleep in less than five minutes after he was done with sex. It was a traditional event - Caleb would lurch in once he was ready for bed, Ophelia would sit there waiting. There was usually arguing about some menial thing Caleb had done during the day, in tonight's case, his conduct this morning. Caleb let her fuss because he knew that turned her on. A short time later, they were both dozing. Ophelia rested beside him under the satin sheets, curled up in a little ball like a dozing cat, completely nude from the night's traditional act, her long red hair swung from the breeze coming in from the open window.

Caleb slept on his back, perfectly prone and snoring loudly. Usually he slept like a log every night, aided by the alcohol in his system, but tonight, some mysterious force lifted him out of the submergence of sleep, just to the edge of the waters. Just enough to rouse Caleb up to where he peeked his eyes from under their heavy lids to make sure where he was. A brief glimpse reminded him he was in his quarters, sleeping in his luxurious four-poster double bed. The only thing out of place was that strange shadowed object at the far end of the room. A squint of eyes reminded him that the shape was that of the life leech. The fact it was standing up on its own scarcely fazed him. It was natural for the staff to do that due to its magic power. Maybe he put it there and just forgot about it. He turned over on his side and tried returning to slumber.

Five minutes later, Caleb was still not asleep yet. Trying to get comfortable he turned over to his other side. As he did he caught a glimpse of the wall and the life leech. He did a double take though. The rod looked like it was placed closer to the bed. "Nah," he muttered and tried going back to a relaxed state. Though, just to check, he looked at it again.

Now it was definitely closer. Definitely. Almost definitely.

Caleb turned over again, leaning over the edge of the bed and looked down at the foot of the nightstand. The bottle of tequila down there still had the worm in it. In fact it wasn't even half-empty yet. That wasn't the cause. Caleb rolled back and closed his eyes again, trying to shake off this strange hallucination, trying to shut the intrusive thoughts out of his mind. Just one final time though, just to make sure he was only dreaming, he looked again.

The skull was staring into him with its one good eye at the side of his bed.

"Get up, dumbass," it said.

"What," Caleb mumbled, still groggy from sleep.

"Get up, dumbass. I ain't got time for your two last brain cells to fire up."

Caleb furrowed his brows and reached over to jostle Ophelia awake. "Ophelia, wake up, the life leech is talking to me."

"Forget that. It won't work," the skull-staff interrupted.

"Come on. Ophelia?"

"She can't hear you!" the skull sang impatiently.

"Unh, this has gotta be a dream."

"Dream or not, I told you to get up."

"Never again." Caleb slumped back against the headrest. "No more tequila right before I go to bed."

"You say that every time you get delirium tremens. Sure as hell ain't stopped you."

"Deliria-what?"

"Just get the hell out of the bed," the life leech demanded sternly.

Caleb shrugged and pulled off the sheets.

"Eughh... check that. Put some clothes on. Then get the hell out of the bed." The life leech hopped up and down, trying to turn himself away from Caleb's naked body. "God, I wish I had eyelids."

"Who the hell are you anyway?" Caleb asked as he put on the clothes heaped at the bottom of the bed."

"Ask me who I was five years ago."

"All right, who were ya five years ago?"

"I was a frickin' skull on a stick! You moron!" He spun around angrily.

"You got an awful disposition for an inanimate object."

"You keep a stick shoved in your butt. See how you feel. Now follow me."

"Why should I do what a talking skull says?"

The life leech jumped and stomped on Caleb's foot with its blunt end.

"Ow!" Caleb took hold of his foot in pain.

"You know, I don't need to be doing this. I'm doing this for your own benefit."

"Why?"

"Cause your life depends on it." The staff bounced out, heading through the room's open door. Caleb rubbed his temples from his growing headache from last night's liquor and checked on Ophelia. She was sleeping as soundly as ever. Guess the talking life leech was right. All right. Caleb would play along with this. Probably just Ishmael playing some joke on him with his magic skills. He was probably out there now, laughing his ass off.

Dressed in his long-sleeved, white, collared button-up shirt and tan pants, he followed his weapon out the door. It was standing in the middle of the hallway looking out into the inky blackness of the corridor.

Caleb said, "What-"

"Look."

Caleb looked up and saw the ghastly apparition of a man standing up some yards away, shaded in black and white. The ghost had three bullet wounds in his chest and a large gaping injury to his stomach. Truly, it was the image of Marley. Caleb rubbed his sleep-ridden eyes to clear them up so he could see a better distance.

Now Marley held his arm around his wife, still with a neat incision around her throat line. And in front of them was their four-year old son with a bullet in his brain. They looked like they were posing for a family portrait, but the sorrowful and forlorn look on their faces was far from a pretty picture.

"Oh, this is good. Hey, Ish, where are ya?" he called out.

"Pay attention, son. This is for your own good. See that guy? You killed him today."

"So what?"

The staff sharply turned to Caleb. "Does 'you killed' even mean anything to you anymore? To deprive of life, to slay, murder, execute? You have taken a man's life. You've robbed him of the one thing he truly possessed in this world. You stole his ability to laugh, sing, play, jump, run, love."

"So what? What's he gonna do to me now, stare me to death? Why is this guy so damn great he has to wake me up in the middle of the night?"

"Cause this guy had a special soul. One of those holy souls. Specially favored by God or something. If these souls die by someone's hands... well, something biblical happens, I don't remember, but He'll be pissed and do you know what happens when God gets pissed?"

"He takes it out on some sodommites?"

The leech sighed, down casting his eye. "You're lucky God is forgiving and all that. You're gonna get a chance for redemption."

"What?"

"Tonight you're going to be visited by three spirits. One from the past, one from the present, one from the future."

"And I'm going to blast their brains out."

"No you aren't," the life leech said, rolling his one eye.

"I'm not gonna lose sleep because of some ghosts who get their jollies from taking me on a time tour."

"Well, too bad," the skull snapped and turned to face him. "You're gonna have to deal with them whether you like it or not. This is your one chance."

"Did you yap this much when you were alive?"

The leech jumped down on Caleb's foot again.

"Ow, goddammit!"

"That's funny. Now get back to bed and remember what I told you."

"All right, that's it." Caleb turned the back of his hand, ready to strike the skull right off his stick. But it had disappeared. "Aw, Christ." The ghost of Marley had disappeared too, and his family. Everything was back to the way should be.

Caleb peeked back into his room. No life leech, no spirits, no ghosts, no apparitions, no nothing but his bed and Ophelia. Caleb let forth a guttural sigh and rubbed his rough worn face. "No more tequila before bed. Not a drop. Just vodka... and maybe some gin."


	2. Stave 2: The First of Three Spirits

**_Stave 2: The First of Three Spirits_**

Caleb, frustrated by his encounter with his talking stick voicing the message of doom, crawled back into bed, which invited him with open arms. Comfortable mattress, warm sheets, soft pillow. He didn't even bother taking off his clothes again. Sleep was the only thing on his mind. He looked over to his pocket watch on the nightstand to check the time. One o'clock.

Suddenly, a bright flash of light lit up the room, glaring the clock out of readability. Caleb squinted his eyes from the luminescence and tried to look where it was coming from, holding his hand in front of him as a shield.

At the end of the bed a white gargoyle hovered in the air, keeping aloft by flapping its wings. An ethereal light broadcast itself from its body, augmented by a wreath of fire floating around its head. It was of slightly lesser size than the gargoyle master Cheogh, but still embodied all his grotesque inhuman qualities - the bony membrane wings jutting out of its back, the muscular build on a disproportionate body, two little horns set above two pupilless yellow eyes and an upturned pig nose, and a mouth full of long, pointed, vampiric teeth. What was unusual about this was that whereas the other gargoyle soldiers had skin tones of brown or gray, this one was all white, a sort of cream color. Plus the fact that it had a halo of fire and somehow had gotten into the room without crashing through anything.

Caleb instinctively and slowly reached under his pillow for his Smith & Wesson he kept for safety's sake. "What the hell are you, some kind of albino gargoyle?"

"I am the spirit whose coming was foretold to you, the spirit who beckons the past." The gargoyle spoke in a beautiful melodic voice, like that of a female child, very uncharacteristic of the gargoyles.

"Are you now, dollface? How did you get in here without breaking anything?"

"My spirit transcends the normal plains of existence. We are not limited by the space between."

"Uh-huh. Neat. What's the deal with the ring of fire?"

"Why do you question me so? Is it not enough that I appear to you?" she said in a ghostly echo. "Is it not enough that I come here to your door? Would you so soon turn me out, to put out the flame that lights your way?"

"Yeah. Because that flame is keeping me awake. And what business is my way to you anyway?"

"Your welfare."

"Aw, ain't that cute. It's better for me and my welfare, and yours as a matter of fact, if you get the hell out."

"Your salvation then. Take heed. Come."

Caleb rolled his eyes and concluded that this effeminate monster was not going to leave him alone no matter what. So he pulled off the sheets once again and approached the beast, who was standing near the window.

"Come with me."

"Sorry, whitey. I don't do high-wire acts," Caleb said as he peered down at the ground many mortal feet below. "Hey!"

Suddenly he felt the piercing grip of the talons of the beast taking hold of his shoulders. With a flap of large wings, he was lifted off the ground and through the window. They sped at an enormous velocity through the forsaken wasteland of the earth, speeds so fast everything was but a blur. Caleb shut his eyes from the wind, not seeing the transition taking place before him. They began descending to the ground, still traveling life-threateningly and unnaturally fast.

With an upward flap of the gargoyle's wings, their speed slowed down to a crawl in an instant and she set Caleb gently on the ground and released him. Dusting his pained shoulders off he took the chance to survey his new environment. He looked to be in a grassy field on a hill. One single room building was on that hill.

"Do you know when you were born?"

"Well, I don't remember. I was awful young then," he replied sarcastically.

"Do you remember where you lived?"

"In a house? In Texas? On Earth? Tell me if I'm getting close."

"Do you remember this place?"

"Do we really have to play twenty questions right now?" Caleb hissed.

The peal of the bell rang from the one-room building. Children poured out of the front door and headed into the field. They divided up by sex, females began playing games like jump rope and jacks. Boys played kick-the-can and other competitive games.

"This is... was my school."

"And that lad there. Do you remember him?"

In the middle of the kick-the-can game, one boy tried to get in the middle of the competition, but kept getting shoved out by bigger kids. He had a head of fine silky light brown hair.

"It's me."

Little Caleb kept trying to get into the game, but continued being strategically shut out by kids taller or bulkier than him. One finally shoved him as hard as he could. Caleb fell back into the dirt and skidded across it, covered in dust.

"Little bastard," older Caleb muttered loudly. He pulled out a magnum from his pocket and began approaching the boy.

"These are the shadows of things that have been," the gargoyle spirit warned. "They have no consciousness of us."

"Oh, I'll show him some consciousness." Caleb aimed the gun at the boy who had shoved his younger self and fired its total rounds. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. The bullets passed through his figure harmlessly. No one took any notice of him. No one saw or heard him. They played their game. Caleb stared hard ahead at the boy, gun still held out.

The spirit came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "They have no consciousness of us."

Caleb grunted, "Get your hand off me, you damn dirty gargoyle. You ain't no psychee-atrist." He turned around and walked away from the fracas to stare alone into the vast field. "They were always picking on me," Caleb muttered to no one in particular, though the gargoyle spirit could hear him. "I never knew why. I wasn't any different from the rest of them. I wasn't a runt. I wasn't dumb. I don't... I don't know..."

Behind him, Little Caleb got up from the dirt, a calm yet terrifying, cold-blooded look on him, one of a boy become a man in an instant. The large kid who had pushed him had his back turned and Caleb tackled him to the ground, knocking aside at least three or four other kids.

Caleb turned back to the scene once the noise was heard. "Oh, now I remember this." A devilish grin morphed onto his face as he started walking toward the more interesting scenario now.

Little Caleb straddled his foe and pounded away at his face like it was meat to be tenderized. Vermillion droplets began to sputter out of the fray. Little Caleb's hands began to grow covered in the crimson ooze. And yet he continued on him like a hammer to a nail, a never-ceasing maelstrom of rage.

One of the girls had gone back to the schoolroom to fetch the teacher and was now coming out with her in hand. When she saw what the state of the playground recess had become she rushed forward to separate the two. Younger Caleb saw this and leapt off the boy's body. He ran off into the field before anyone could catch him or stop him. The teacher went to help the bloodied boy. They all watched Caleb run away, never called out to him, never yelled for him to come back. He ran and ran and ran.

"I never went back," the elder Caleb said, watching the entire incident from a unique perspective. "I never went back. And good riddance to them."

"Let us see another time," the gargoyle said after a long silence. She began walking out into the field, rather unusual she was not using her wings. Caleb followed her, with no clue where he was going, and normally wouldn't have followed anyone without a good explanation. But so far the things he had seen had a purpose behind them. And besides, there was a feeling at the back of his mind this was all just a dream anyway, so it really didn't matter. As they walked, time passed quickly, abnormally quickly. Every step brought the sun closer to the horizon, Caleb could track its movement with sight alone. When it reached the edge of evening, the white gargoyle spirit stopped.

"Now where are we?" Caleb asked.

"Is this familiar?"

"No, never seen a field in my life," Caleb replied impatiently.

"Look," the gargoyle lifted its long muscular arm and pointed down the hill.

Four boys came walking through the fields and tall grass, laughing and making merry in the dusk. They couldn't have been but more than twelve or thirteen. One, the tallest of them with a coonskin cap on, was holding a stick on his shoulder like a rifle. Caleb squinted to see it was in fact a hunting rifle.

"G'wan, shoot it," he said.

"No, my pa'll whup me if I shoot that thing," a blond-haired boy said.

"That's why we came out here."

"How're you ever gonna be a man if you don't shoot a rifle."

"My pa don't want me shootin' no rifles. He-"

"Are you a mama's boy?"

"That one's me," Caleb pointed out the last boy who spoke. "Can't say I remember those others."

"Friends of yours."

"I guess."

The one with the rifle took it down and aimed it along shoulder level. "I bet I could shoot me a jackrabbit at about 200 yards with this thing."

"No, you couldn't."

"I could."

"Quit jawin' y'all's mouth," younger Caleb said.

"Here, Dickie, shoot it," he shoved it in front of the apprehensive boy.

"I told you. I'll git into trouble."

"Oooh, li'l Dickie's scared of a rifle," younger Caleb said.

"I ain't scared."

"Then prove it."

"There's a chipmunk about fifteen yards there." The tall boy pointed ahead to a fallen log in the terrain.

"Go ahead, now's your chance."

Dickie took the rifle and aimed it at the chipmunk. The others waited quietly for the impending shot. After a few seconds he put it back down. "I can't."

"Aw, you are a mama's boy." Caleb whisked the rifle away from him. "Lemme show you how it's done." Caleb quickly aimed it to eyesight and blasted the firearm.

The sound echoed through the valley. A flock of blackbirds escaped from a far-off tree. The boys held their ears from the tremendous noise. Seconds later it still rung in their heads. The squirrel exploded as the brute shot fired, bits of blood and flesh flew outward. No part of it was recognizable as a rodent anymore. The boys turned away as squirrel shrapnel pelleted their skin. Caleb felt bits of bone and blood land on his face. He continued to stare outward as he lowered his rifle, in a state of shock it seemed, until he licked a bit of the blood off his lip.

"Whoa, Caleb. You blew him away," the tall one slapped Caleb on the back.

"Yeah... guess I did..."

From the top of the hill, the elder Caleb watched with much interest. "That was the first time I fired a gun." He paused. "And the first time I killed."

"But it would not be the last," the spirit added.

"No... it would not. It most certainly would not." Caleb stood from his crouching position. "And my taste for blood has made me stronger than anyone else. It's gotten me nothin' but rewards in return." He stood staring the gargoyle down. "Is that what this all is? Just some cheesy version of my life story to get me to change my ways? Well, you're wasting your time."

"One shadow more."

"Are we going to be doing this all night? I forgot my bag lunch."

"My time grows short. Come."

The words of the spirit produced an immediate effect, for in the blink of an eye they appeared in a saloon. And another previous version of himself was here too. Probably around seventeen. No, exactly seventeen. Caleb remembered this part of his past with perfect clarity. His youthful form sat at a table near the wall, across from a very fine looking woman with brunette curls and deep mysterious eyes.

"Sara..." Caleb whispered. "Fair Sara..."

Caleb whipped around to the white spirit. "No, you are not gonna show me this. You are not-"

"I told you these were the shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me."

The passive look of the gargoyle stopped him. She stared right past him, watching the scene unfold. Caleb turned back to watch too.

Younger Caleb had a dark colored glass of bourbon in front of him. Sara looked like she had a sarsaparilla or some fizzy drink. The way the two looked into each other's eyes rang true of the puppy love all teenagers experience. Aside from themselves, there were only a few people in the bar tonight. But even if there were more people, the pair wouldn't have noticed them.

The younger Caleb set down his glass after a sip. "So what does it matter?" he said.

"It matters a great deal," Sara replied. "My parents would sooner want me to live an old maid than to marry a roughneck."

Caleb leaned into Sara in a quick, uncoordinated movement. "So run away with me."

"I can't. They want me to get an education."

"We can mine. I can mine. Ev'ry one of 'em who goes out west sez the gold gets brighter and brighter the farther you go."

"And what would I do?"

"You could..." Caleb trailed off.

"I won't sit idle, you know."

"I know."

"And those mines are dangerous."

"Aaah," Caleb dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand.

"You'll get coal miner's lung or die in a cavern. I won't have you do such risk-taking work."

"Then we can farm. We can start our own farm. Out west. All th' land we could ever want."

She shook her head as he was speaking, "My parents've already made plans for me to attend finishing school in New York. They don't want me to be a farmer's wife, working all day and night, supporting more children than I can feed."

"So forget them!"

"And I don't either."

Caleb sat back stunned and exasperated.

"Caleb, I want to get an education. I want to get out of this ghost town. I want to be a journalist or a writer. I want to see the world."

"I- we-," Caleb struggled to find words, showing both his ineptitude and inebriation. "Sara, I love you."

The elder Caleb winced when he heard these words.

"I know," Sara said, "But I... I can't do anything-"

"Goddammit, Sara," he slammed his hand on the table, "Why d' you have to be so high-class. Yer always flauntin' yer money around."

"I do not flaunt my money around," Sara countered.

Caleb flastered back in his chair, almost upsetting it. "You talkin' about how you're going to New York City with all them carpet-baggers. It's nothing but horseshit."

"Hey." A rather brutish man with a black beard and a ten-gallon hat put a hand on Caleb's shoulder. "Aroun' here we don't talk to women like that," he slurred quite drunkenly. "And we don't take the name ovva Lord 'n vain."

"Mind your own beeswax, stranger. When I want your opinion I'll give it t' you."

"Caleb!" Sara gasped.

"Hey... nobody talks to Black Bart like that, eh, boys?" His boys across the tavern cheered obsequiously.

"What am I? Flypaper for freaks?"

"That's it, buddy," Bart poked him painfully in the shoulder behind him. "Let's go."

"Don't waste my time."

"C'mon, a showdown, you and me."

"You two stop it," Sara commanded. "You've had too much to drink, Caleb," she gestured to Bart, "And you've had way too much to drink."

"I can handle myself," Caleb said.

"Any time."

Caleb and Black Bart exited the saloon through the swinging doors and walked into the dirt road. "Caleb, no, you're going to get hurt." Everyone in the saloon had come outside to watch now.

"Quit tellin' me what t' do, Sara," Caleb cocked his head to his girlfriend, never taking his eyes off his enemy. "Your way is your way, and my way is my way."

"Guns at ten paces," Back Bart instructed.

"All right." They stood back to back in the middle of the dirt road. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go. One, two, ten." Caleb turned and fired his revolver in one smooth movement. The brute fell back into the dirt.

"It's all in the reflexes."

The watchers ran over to Caleb's antagonist to see his condition. Caleb walked slowly up to him, still holding the pistol in hand.

The man was holding his gut, which was bleeding profusely, trickling down his sides and through the cracks in his fingers. The bullet had gone completely through his body. He looked up with a pleading innocent face.

"Please..." he whispered. "Please... help..."

Caleb lifted his gun and shot him once in the chest, directly through his heart. A flawless hit. The man fell limp.

"Relax. You're dead."

Sara shrieked in horror in disgust. She ran out into the night frantically running, no purpose or destination.

"Sara, wait!" Caleb called out. "Sara! Wait! I'm sorry!"

"Stop this," elder Caleb demanded. He was standing beside the tavern crowd. "Stop this now."

"When was the last time you told someone that you love them?" the gargoyle spirit behind him said.

"Stop-"

"When was the last time you thought about what you did-"

"I said stop this NOW!" Caleb whipped around to strike the gargoyle, but it had disappeared.

And he was in his bed again, sitting up, still in the position of striking at the air.


	3. Stave 3: The Second of Three Spirits

**_Stave 3: The Second of Three Spirits_**

Caleb looked around for a second, to see where he was, to see there was no spirit near him, no saloon, no shoddily built town. Just his bed, his room, and Ophelia sleeping next to him. "Damn, this is getting annoying," he commented to no one in particular. Caleb checked the clock by his bed. It still said one o'clock precisely, the same time as when he supposedly left for his little journey into the past. He held the pocket watch up to his ear to make sure if it was still ticking. It was. He shook it lightly to hear if anything was rattling around inside. There wasn't.

Suddenly he heard a rapping at the door at the other end of his bed.

"For Christ's sake," Caleb muttered to himself as he got up again. Someone was gonna pay tonight for making him get up like this. He grabbed his trench coat hung on a poster of the bed and his brimmed hat under it. "When's the hurting stop?" he muttered as he went to answer the door. He knew full well it was going to be the next spirit and he was certainly going to give him a piece of his mind. Shuffling to the wall, he saw pure yellow light seeping through the seams of the door.

As he touched the doorknob he heard a deep guttural voice groaning or moaning. Caleb grumbled to himself, wondering why he was putting up with this, and opened the door.

The room looked bright and vibrant, almost festive. Green plants were hung around the space, crisp and lively. A hearth burned with a fire healthy and strong. The room had no space to walk through for it was filled with all blends of food -basted turkeys, broiled chicken, roast goose, beef brisket, suckling pig, hot sausage links, steaming pies, sweet cakes, sapid pastries, glistening apples, savory oranges, juicy green grapes, flavorful pears, fresh vegetables, cool cream, real churned butter, barrels of beer, wine, and ale. All the foods a starving man would dream of were laid out here on tables and where tables ran out of space, on chairs, and when chairs ran out, on the floor. The vapors clung to Caleb's nose, inviting him in warmly and generously. Butlers wandered around, wherever they could step, scurrying like ants, replacing any available space with more helpings.

At the back was a sort of throne. And on that throne sat, or laid rather, it was hard to tell, a familiar face to Caleb - one of the beasts from the crypt's workshop, an undead soldier of the Cabal in the form of a bloated butcher. Only this zombie was ten times as big and fat as the rotting corpses underground. Hideous rolls of blubbery putrid purple fat fell down his body like a waterfall. Whatever he could get his chubby hands around he ate, like he hadn't eaten for weeks. With one bite he ripped every scrap of meat from a turkey bone. His other hand glommed onto an entire cherry pie, which took two chews and a swallow to completely eliminate it.

"Come in," he exclaimed through a full mouth as he took up a bowl of pudding. "Come in, and know me better, man." He turned to the side and vomited up a bucketful of acidic green goo. The bile ran down his already multi-stained undershirt.

"Eugh," Caleb said.

"I am the spirit of garumph galag," he burbled with a mouthful of angel food cake. "Look upon me."

"It's hard not to."

"You have never seen the like of me before," it said between bites.

"Do whales count?"

A butler dressed to nines came by the zombie to deliver more food. He offered to him a silver tray with a steaming glazed ham garnished with vegetables upon it. The zombie butcher grabbed the old man's hand and pulled it towards him. The tray spilled out and clanged on the floor. He peeled the top of his bald head back like a cook pot lid and dipped his hand in to eat his brains like they were pudding.

"Hmm," Caleb groaned, "Part of a complete breakfast."

The butcher licked the red and gray jelly off his fingers. "Come in, come in and know me better."

"I like my brains where they are, thanks."

"Have you never seen the like of me before?"

"Only when I want to induce vomiting."

"You have never walked with the other members of my family?"

"There's more of you? Great."

"Over 1800 of us."

"Is that people or tons?"

"Touch me, that we may be off and start this journey."

"Plenty of places to touch," Caleb commented and grabbed hold of one of the flabby rolls on his left.

Like a flash of lightning they were gone from that place. Everything vanished in an instant and was replaced with the living room of a house. Judging by the decor, it came from the middle or upper-middle class, the best evidence from the rug with a woven rose pattern and the sofa to match. A young man lay on that couch. A woman of about his age was treating his swollen eye with a pack of ice.

"I don't even know what his name was," the man said to the woman. "How're you going to report him to the sheriff?"

"I don't know. I just will," she responded irately. "Someone needs to stop that man. Someone should."

"Spirit, why are we here?" Caleb queried.

"Do you not remember events of even last night?" the bloated butcher said, plopped on the floor beside Caleb like the great lump of fat he was.

"This is the guy I punched out?"

The woman continued dabbing at her fiancée's eye. "People like that shouldn't be allowed to roam free in the street."

"Don't blame him. He was probably just having a bad day."

"A bad day doesn't mean he has the right to punch you in the eye. How can I go down the aisle with the man I love when he has a patch over his eye? I can't marry Blackbeard the pirate," she smiled.

"Some people are just bad-tempered, I guess. It's just human nature."

The woman rose up and grabbed a sheet from a basket nearby and began to fold it. It was the day's laundry fresh from the line.

"If that man was here right now I'd give him a piece of my mind, I would."

"But dear-"

"Don't 'but dear' me. If he was here right now, I would make both of his eyes black."

"I'd like to see you try it, sister," Caleb commented in the background.

"But, dear, I can't go to work if I have a bad eye." He grinned devilishly. obviously trying to hint at something.

His fiancée looked at him puzzled for a moment. "True. What..." Then smiled back. "Oh." She threw away the sheet and bent down to the couch and began to passionately kiss him.

The butcher began to waddle off. "Come, there is more to show," he said just as she put her leg on top of his body. Caleb stayed.

"Let's move on," the zombie reiterated.

"Aw, damn, it was just starting to get good."

Without a word of warning they passed through a pair of large steel double doors. It was the entrance to the Cult's communal dining room, where all the followers of Tchernobog sat to sup. The Cult's meals were all taken this way, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All were at tables long enough to accommodate everyone. The tables divided by ranking, brown robes sat away from gray robes, gray robes sat away from green who sat away from blue and so on. But though they were divided at the dinner table they all ate at the same level. Those who did not eat at the same level were the Chosen who supped on top of a balcony in the wall overlooking the dining room. Right now there were only three of them eating though, the absent being Caleb. Of course, if this were truly the present, he would not be here.

"Ah, my people," Caleb commented.

The grotesquely fat zombie and Caleb found themselves walking up to the balcony. Although the zombie did not exactly walk, rather he slithered like a slug.

Caleb nodded his head and smiled as they approached the table. "Ah, finally, someone who will speak well of me."

"Caleb is such a bastard," Gabriel said.

"On the other hand, what do I know," Caleb shrugged.

"He's a stupid idiot," Gabriel continued. "He never listens to us. He jus' goes off on his own and then yells at us for not doin' what he did."

"Here, here," Ishmael agreed, sipping his wine.

"I don' know why we jus' don' cut him right now. We should hang him by his thumbs. Teach him a lesson."

"I can't believe you," Ophelia hissed. "How dare you talk about Caleb like that. He is our leader. He is the general of the Cabal."

Gabriel said, "He's your boyfriend."

"Be that as it may-"

"Boy-toy, more like." Gabriel and Ishmael laughed to themselves.

Ophelia hissed, "Caleb was right, you are idiots." Caleb looked pleased as Ophelia defended him. "I mean, even I know he's a stubborn, arrogant, psychotic lunkhead. But don't say things like that out loud. The Cabal has ears everywhere, even where we sit. Do you want to unhinge our bonds and factionize the Cult? Then where would we be? Where would our power be? He may be an idiot, but we need him on our side."

"You talk too much, Brit."

"Bayou street trash."

"You go back and thump your precious leader all you want, cause you know he'll protect you. Has he gotten 'roll over' down yet?"

Ophelia grimaced, took her plate and slammed it on Gabriel's head. Gravy and potatoes dribbled down his dreadlocks. She left the dining room in a huff. Ishmael put a hand to his mouth to stifle his giggling while Gabriel licked the dripping gravy off his face.

"Attagirl, baby," Caleb commented.

Ishmael brushed the dripping gravy from Gabriel's eyes. "Bit off more than you could chew?"

"Let's go," the zombie spirit said.

"Hah hah hah," Caleb laughed brusquely to himself as he followed the butcher out.

As soon as he turned, he followed the butcher into a graveyard, a small one. A few gray tombstones grew like a garden enclosed in a gray brick wall and a gothic-spired fence. A small mausoleum was between the wall and the fence with a plaque that said 'In Loving Memoriam'. All of this plot was in front of a funeral chapel.

"What've you got to show me here?"

Caleb looked to the butcher and saw that, beyond his rolls of fat, wrinkles and age lines had appeared in his face, making him look quite old.

"My time grows short."

"Yeah, that's what the last one said. You guys don't last too long."

"My time upon this globe is very brief."

"Maybe you should cut down on those butlers. High in cholesterol."

The chimes upon the chapel began to ring the hour.

"In fact," the zombie said again, "My life ends tonight at midnight."

It chimed twice and thrice.

"No one lives forever," Caleb said.

"Aye, no one, but you, as it were," he said suggestively as the clock rang four, referring to Tchernobog's blessing upon him

"Yeah, no one but me. Why?" Five.

"Soon you'll see," he guffawed. Six.

"Screw that! Tell me now! If all this is supposed to change me." Seven.

The butcher remained speechless. Eight.

"Oh, I see, I still gotta wait for the ghost of my future?"

Nine.

"You know, I'm getting tired of all this spirit shit."

Ten.

"I'm sick of all this revisiting my past and everyone dumping on me and not getting a wink of sleep because my own damn weapons are talking to me."

Eleven.

"And I have had enough." Caleb pulled the gun out of his pocket and aimed-

Twelve.

The butcher was no longer there. Instead there was a man with no face.


	4. Stave 4: The Last of Three Spirits

**_Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits_**

"Let me guess... future?"

The faceless man nodded.

Caleb looked upon the floating apparition. Its form was that of a lean man, no gargoyles or grotesque monsters here. He wore a long olive green raincoat with red stains at the ends of the sleeves, and dirty gray pants. Across his breadth he held a staff with a crescent moon at its end across his breadth. Through the coat his torso was uncovered by flesh. The body's protective rib cage was completely visible through the coat's slitted opening, encapsulating lungs, heart, and other vital parts. His entire head was covered in a white cloth, secured around his neck with a cord. Caleb wondered why his face was covered, if he could see through it or breathe, to say nothing of the fact he was floating in the air over him or appeared to have no skin.

"You really that ugly?"

The spirit said nothing.

"So what do you got to show me?"

The phantom slowly and smoothly took the staff from its prone position and pointed its crescent end out at the far wall. A faint beam of violet light streamed out at the wall and formed into a vortex, swirling purple and ebony, like a black hole. The phantom shifted his staff back to a resting position.

"Go in there, huh?"

The spirit nodded once.

Caleb let forth a sort of grumbling sigh and walked forward. The ghost floated along side him and the two walked through the rift. A shower of glimmering green sparkles and then they emerged.

A bitter chilling wind was the first thing he noticed. Caleb pulled up the collar on his shirt for protection. He was in a circle of stone pillars. The air was thin, like they were on a mountaintop.

"Where are we?"

The floating phantom pointed with his scepter below. There was a pile of ashes ahead of them on a slab of stone that looked like a funeral pyre.

"It's a rock," Caleb commented.

The phantom pointed onward to the pile.

"Don't say much, do you?" Caleb said as he approached the debris. Not quite sure of what to do, he looked down at the pile. Seeing nothing, he pawed through it. A glint of gold caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a brooch or a large amulet of some kind splotched with char marks. This had to have been what the silent spirit wanted him to find. Why, he had no idea. He didn't recognize it as anything special. Though it was the same size and shape as Oph-

"No... NOOOOOOO!" Caleb screamed as though he had fallen through the chasm of death himself. He threw the brooch down in the ashes and turned to face the phantom. "No, this is not true! This is not going to happen!"

The spirit did not respond vocally, but waved his scepter in an arc over their heads. The scene changed from an aerie to a cold underground lair, walled in stone. Cobwebs and clumps of spider silk coated the walls, clutched in every corner, every crack.

"What's this?" Caleb angrily demanded.

The phantom lifted the staff and pointed behind him. He turned and saw a gigantic cocoon nestled within a niche in the wall blanketed with sticky silk. The cocoon was split open, ripped down the middle in a gory bloody mess. Stringy entrails and blood-soaked strands of silk were spilt out. Caleb bent down to a knee in the dirt for closer inspection. There was one mass that wasn't just a random organ, it was a hand draped out of its prison, and despite the dried blood it was covered in, he could tell it was very muscular and had dark brown skin.

"Gabriel."

Behind him the spirit waved his scepter again. Before Caleb's very eyes, where he was still on the ground, the scene morphed into a fiery sulphourous grotto. The heat was sweltering as the lava pits to the left and right boiled and bubbled over. Instead of a bloody chrysalis, there was now a bloody stain on the rocky cavern ground. Giblets and bits of meat littered the floor, like some great animal had exploded here. In front of him he noticed a single dismembered finger, a finger with an emerald ring still around it. Ishmael's ring.

Caleb jumped up and looked away in disgust, running into the body of the phantom, still and solid like a wall, floating with his toes dangling just above the ground.

"Who did this?" Caleb said, clutching onto the phantom's coat lapels. "Who's responsible? Who killed them?"

The phantom turned around and shot another crimson vortex out at the wall. Hastily, Caleb ran towards the rift. Not even waiting for the phantom to precede him, he jumped through.

Strangely, when Caleb exited, he felt like he had no body, no fingers, no hands, no arms, no feet. He was floating and he was floating over the Hall of Epiphany, with himself and the three other Chosen ones standing before the throne of Tchernobog. But he could feel what he felt down below. No control, but feeling, the feeling of the ground below him, the feel of the dry, musty air, and the feeling of confidence and power in the presence of a god.

"Welcome, my servants..." The giant minotaur being tapped His bone-fingers on the armrest of His chair. "My slaves..."

The Apothecary shuffled into the room, wearing the brown hooded robe of a cultist, and walked between the throne and the Chosen. He slowly pulled back his hood, revealing his wrinkled disfigured face with empty black eyes.

"What is your bidding, master?" Caleb asked, addressing his lord.

The Apothecary straightened up like he was being stretched or held like a stringed puppet. His jaw dropped wide, wider than should have been possible, and he began to make horrible gagging sounds. His eyes went from pitch black to glowing ethereal white.

"You have failed me... I disavow you all."

"What th'" Caleb stammered.

"What?" Ophelia gasped.

The Apothecary's eyes returned to the color of coal. He tilted his head and grinned a toothless smile, as if he was pleased.

His skin stretched tight over his frame and shriveled to desiccation. The robe with no support fell around his body. His body dissolved into ash and powder, leaving behind the cracked remnants of a grinning skeleton before Tchernobog's glowing yellow eyes like the moon from the shadow of his throne. The eyes turned to the left.

Caleb turned and looked. The spider-demon Shial descended from her long thread attached to the ceiling and picked up Gabriel. The brave and fierce warrior screamed and flailed his arms as he was lifted off the ground shrieking "Get it off me! Get it off me!" and vanished.

A burst of heat seared up at his left. He looked and saw Ishmael enveloped in a fiery inferno. He collapsed on the ground with Cerberus and a pack of hellhounds approaching his scorched body to feast.

Caleb and Ophelia were so stunned they couldn't even move, confused and afraid. They could feel the ties that bound them to Tchernobog start to fray. From the blackness behind them emerged Cheogh, the gargoyle master. Before Caleb could react the demon grabbed Ophelia and whisked her off. Ophelia screamed out for a split second. Caleb jumped for her but she was just out of reach as the monster retreated into the darkness again.

"I've taken your love..."

Caleb looked back at Tchernobog and saw He was fading out. The entire hall was fading out, fading to inky blackness.

"...Now I will take your life..."

Darkness swelled around him, swallowing him. He could feel himself falling, abandoned, falling through the abyss, cold, black.

"Consider my power... in a hollow grave."

And they burn...

Caleb awoke, crouched into himself. Standing on one knee, huddled into a ball of agony and pain. The blackness surrounded him but he could see his hands and body as if it was pure day.

The phantom spirit floated up behind him. Caleb did not need to turn around to know he was there.

"And me? ... What happens to me?"

The light did fade in again, into the very same graveyard where they had met. The phantom floated past him and up a hill, while Caleb stayed in his curled position, not wanting to move, not wanting to feel a sensation at all. Until he couldn't take the numbness anymore and sprang from his place.

He ran up the hill path and into a large mausoleum at its apex. Tombs inside decayed on both sides of the wall. He turned the corner. The spirit floated next to an unmarked grave, not yet buried.

Caleb looked into it. There was an ancient coffin. He bent over and knocked away the sediment and cobwebs. Small bugs scattered as he thrashed blindly until he tore open the tomb's cover.

"NooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

No! Caleb clawed away, shredding and tearing, flailing outward. Though his hands lashed at nothing but the abyss surrounding him. He scraped again, flailing for anything material. And he touched it and the darkness gave way to something soft and smooth.

"No! No!" he yelled.

The sheet pulled off him. Caleb looked upon the ceiling of his bedroom, the curtain overhang from the bedposts. He suddenly realized he was caught in a very undignified position with his hands motionless in the air like a dead bug and lowered them down.

Ophelia, who had torn of the sheet, flung it back over him, it fluttered down on his body like a shroud. "Go back to sleep, Caleb," she huffed.

Caleb sighed. "Not dead," he said with relief. "I'm not dead."

"I'm gonna make you dead if you don't shut up," Ophelia quickly commented and pulled the sheets tighter to her.

"Ophelia, what's today?" Caleb shook her about the shoulder.

"Eh," she returned sleepily.

"What's today?"

"Today?" replied the woman. "Why, Tuesday!" she put the pillow over her head. "Now shut up and go back to sleep or you'll never wake up again."

Caleb sat again in bed on his back and breathed out relief. The bright orange sun streaked out over the horizon, brightening their window, illuminating the room.


	5. Stave 5: The End of It

**_Stave 5: The End of It_**

In the morning, the Cult's membership could be located in the dining hall of their underground temple. Breakfast was being served to all those on the floor who ate at a steady pace.

On a balcony overlooking the hall's constituents, Gabriel, Ishmael, and Ophelia ate their breakfast as well - a higher quality meal for a higher quality person. They ravaged their plates, wolfing down their food - grilled steak, sausage links, eggs, fresh ham, newly squeezed orange juice, coffee, and other rich treats.

Caleb stumbled in from to the scene, after taking the necessary time to make himself as presentable as he could to the others.

"Damn, two more minutes, I woulda had his breakfast," Gabriel spouted.

"My word, Caleb, you look like exim'ha," Ishmael said.

"Bad night," Caleb responded.

"You mean hangover," Gabriel said, spooning up his eggs.

"And hangover," Caleb said. He sat down and slugged back the 'hair of the dog' at his setting. Caleb made sure the food preparers always had one out for him every morning. With that consumed he began to scrape up his lukewarm meal as well, something to absorb the poison sitting rock hard in his stomach. The others continued eating, mouths too full to bother saying anything. Ophelia grabbed the pitcher of orange juice across the table. Ishmael reached over for more toast.

"So, er, you guys... all right? I mean, how're ya doin'?" Caleb addressed the table hesitantly.

The trio froze in action and turned their eyes up at Caleb, mouths open wide for food to be shoveled in. They looked at him like he had suddenly painted himself with white clown make-up and put on a striped sweater.

"What the hell happened to you?" Ophelia asked after a few seconds.

"What?"

"You're not devouring your food."

"You're asking us how we are," Ishmael chimed in.

"Did you get kidnapped by aliens or sometin'?" Gabriel said.

"Fine, forget it, just forget it," Caleb said angrily. "Forget I ever said anything." Caleb speared a mouthful of sausage, glommed it into his cheeks and chewed nosily, keeping his eyes down on his plate. Forget reaching out to them, it's a lost cause anyway. Forget them.

With things apparently back to normal, Ophelia, Gabriel, and Ishmael continued their meal as well. Suspicious though, they quickly dismissed the feeling in lieu of filling their stomachs.

* * *

Ben walked into his home's dining room in the morning and saw something he never expected. There was a package on his table, a present to be exact. A square box nicely wrapped in white, trimmed with an eggshell ribbon. Instead of going to pour his morning coffee he went for the box, for it was very curious indeed. Once approached, Ben noticed a tag placed under the ribbon that read With congratulations on your wedding day in gold ink.

"Honey," he called out. "Did you see this box here?"

"What box?" came a faint reply.

"In the dining room here?"

Ben undid the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box. Inside was a set of wine glasses. He took one out to examine it in the light. They were rimmed with pure gold, handcrafted, and frosted with beautiful designs and shapes, no doubt very expensive.

"Well, god bless us... everyone."

###


End file.
